Anne Holm · 1963 · overland
Anne Holm's 1963 novel (first published in Danish as David). A boy who has known nothing but a Communist labour camp escapes and crosses Cold War Europe alone, from the Balkans through Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, with only a compass and the name of a country, Denmark, where he is told he will be free and may find his mother.
- 1The labour camp
David, twelve, has spent his whole remembered life in a Communist labour camp in the Balkans (Bulgaria, by the book's geography). A guard he hates engineers his escape with a compass, bread and a single instruction: head for Salonika, find a ship to Italy, then go north to Denmark.
- 2Salonika
Following the compass south into Greece, David reaches the port of Salonika and stows away on a ship marked for Italy, hiding below decks for days until a sailor discovers him.
- 3Southern Italy
The sailor lowers him over the side with a lifebelt and David floats ashore in southern Italy. The colour and warmth of the place overwhelm a boy who has known only grey; he shelters in a cave and slips into a nearby town to learn how to be free.
- 4Northern Italy
Working his way up the length of Italy, David saves a girl, Maria, from a fire; her grateful family take him in, and with them he smiles for the first time, until the fear of being recognised drives him onward.
- 5Switzerland
In Switzerland a painter named Sophie shows him a photograph of a woman in Copenhagen, and at last he understands she is his mother. Winter traps him as the unpaid labourer of a mountain farmer, his one comfort the dog King.
- 6Germany
When the snow melts David and King break out and travel north through Germany. At a guarded frontier King hurls himself at the soldiers so that David can slip past in the confusion, and is killed for it.
- 7Copenhagen
Alone and at the end of his strength, David crosses into Denmark and reaches Copenhagen, finds his mother's name in a telephone book, climbs to her door, and tells her who he is.